Tuesday, October 14, 2008

There's a joke about rock bands, that when they get too big and fall out of touch with their audience, they start writing songs about the trials and tribulations of being on the road. It's a cliche in 1980's rock videos. You know, being on the bus, looking wistfully out the window as you roll into another town. Whatever.

Here's a group of songs by an array of artists, that look to their band as a subject for their song. This is almost, but not exclusively, the provenance of British bands: the idea of being in a band as being a member of a gang. The Clash perfected this concept. I was hard pressed to pick just one of their songs. "Clash City Rockers" was the obvious first choice, but isn't really on the subject. It's no secret that they modeled themselves after Mott, or at least guitarist Mick Jones did, and that's a good thing. Railroad Jerk tells a tall tale. The Mekons have a sense of humor about it, but the Mekons are "a band that deals in the facts of life." The Minutemen are dewey-eyed romantic punks name-checking their forebears. Felt are jangly, and Them are Irish, slightly menacing, and very intense.

12 comments:

On behalf of Exile Productions and Exile Publishing, we would kindly ask you not to post pirate copies of Van Morrison albums / tracks on your site.

We do appreciate that you are fans of / are promoting Van, but Exile would greatly appreciate your co-operation in removing your links to the pirate files in question.

For your readers’ info, up-to-the-minute info on Van’s latest album - Keep It Simple - and 2008 shows is, of course, available on www.vanmorrison.com and www.myspace.com/vanmorrison and, for a limited period, you can still see Van's exclusive BBC sessions at http://www.bbc.co.uk/musictv/vanmorrison/video/ . We’re also pleased to announce that an increasing archive of exclusive film footage of Van Morrison performances has now been made available for fans on Exile’s official YouTube channel at http://uk.youtube.com/user/OfficialExileFilms.

As you will appreciate, this e-mail is written on a without prejudice basis and, as such, all of our clients' accumulated, worldwide rights and remedies remain strictly reserved : please excuse this required formality.

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Whereas, as a Constitutionally-sanctioned entity directly responsible to the public, the Office of Web Sheriff fulfills a distinct role within the community and today remains responsive and accountable to the public it serves, and it is fitting to celebrate the historically significant contributions of the Office of Web Sheriff and the valuable work carried out by the Sheriff as a longstanding component of law enforcement within our modern criminal justice system;

By the time the WEB SHERIFF finds all the "pirated" sound files of Van's songs, he won't have a fan base left. WEB SHERIFF should know that their actions have led to Morrison being put on an unofficial bloggers blacklist. I'll never post any of his songs again, that's for sure.

At least web sheriff posts a comment on your blog asking you to take down the track.

I just had a post removed by blogger without any notice. The song was that hot new hit from The Band called "I Shall Be Released."

I think it's kind of odd that tracks older than me (almost) are getting taken down. Maybe I'm overestimating the effect of blogs on the younger generation, but you'd think it would help create interest that might lead to sales of the full album. Oh well.